Quack. Quack. Zoom. With visions of unified Republican rule dancing in their heads, congressional leaders in both chambers are keen to keep the lame duck session quick and painless. (House members are already fleeing town, starting the holiday recess a week early.)

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Pretty much everyone could use a bit of extra time off to prepare for the new president and the vastly altered political landscape he brings. Across the Hill, Trump’s shocker of a win has revalued the stock of members on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers. Some are obvious. (Poor Nancy Pelosi.) Some less so. (What will Jason Chaffetz do without a Democratic president to torment?) As the Trump Era looms, keep one eye on these notables, who saw their fortunes reshuffled on Election Day in ways good, bad, and ulcer-inducing:

Senator Orrin Hatch. The Senate’s senior Republican took a risk this cycle, coming out relatively early for Trump and sticking by him through all the bump-and-grind. As Utah’s Mormon population blanched at Trump’s personal piggishness, most of the state’s elected officials stiff-armed the nominee. (Or, in the case of Representative Jason Chaffetz, executed a dizzying embrace, shun, re-embrace three-step.) But no way Hatch was going to get tarred as a fusty establishment tool. He wooed the Latter Day Saints for Trump, both inside Utah and beyond, right up through Election Day. (Keeping the bonds strong, Hatch’s chief-of-staff has joined the Trump-Pence transition team.) And now comes the payoff. As head of the Finance Committee, Hatch will be a key player in replacing Obamacare, producing an infrastructure package, overhauling the tax code—and any number of other big-ticket agenda items the new president feels moved to pursue.

Senator Elizabeth Warren. Yeah, I know: Duh. The Massachusetts firebrand was already poised to be the Democrats’ champion of progressivism. Now, she has as good a claim as any to being the voice of the entire party. Progressive activists and pundits are already pushing for Warren to step up, and she is near or at the top of most lists of 2020 contenders. With a pugilistic demagogue in the Oval Office, Warren’s in-your-face style could prove useful as her party struggles to get its mojo back. (She was the rare public official who gave as good as she got from Trump during the campaign.) If Warren has any interest in higher office, she now has a platform, a message, a party desperately in search of a leader--and four fewer years to wait.

Representative Jason Chaffetz. Talk about a letdown: The media-savvy chairman of Oversight and Government Reform was all revved up for a rousing four-to-eight years of probing the dickens out of President Hillary. Benghazi, bootleg email servers, the FBI’s handling of the whole mess, pay-to-play Clinton Foundation accusations—you name it, Chaffetz was ready to drill down. And now? Nothing. No Hillary. No more Obama. And at least four years of a president from Chaffetz’s own party who, even if the chairman were inclined to investigate, has a gift for flouting political norms with impunity. (Tax return questions? Conflicts of interest? Crony capitalism? Pish-posh!) Sure, Chaffetz can chase the tail end of this or that Hillary-inspired tizzy (#Pizzagate, anyone?), but with her political moment over, where’s the fun in that? Life on Oversight promises to be vastly less zippy in Trump’s Washington.

Senator Chuck Schumer. In recent years, Schumer’s reputation has morphed from that of partisan warrior to pragmatic deal-maker. As the new Democratic leader, he’ll need to keep both these personas in delicate balance—especially with a wheeler-dealer in the White House and the opposing team controlling both chambers. Among his early challenges, Schumer will need to continually assess which of his members defending seats in 2018 need to play ball with Trump on certain issues. Particularly for those hailing from states Trump carried, there will be a perpetual tension between the need for team unity and the need to go their own way. Managing that tension will be Schumer’s enduring headache.

Senator-elect Chris Van Hollen. With their hopes of retaking the Senate shattered, Democrats are now facing a heart-stopping 2018 midterm: They will be defending 23 seats (25 if you count independents Angus King and Bernie Sanders), 10 in states won by Trump. This would be a herculean challenge even if the party weren’t demoralized and its donors grumbling about wasted contributions. To help manage the chaos, Schumer has turned to incoming Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen, the first senator-elect ever tapped for the job. Van Hollen is hardly a newbie. He did two terms as head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, handling the 2008 and 2010 cycles. His goal, obviously, is to make 2018 more like 2008 than 2010 for his team.

Senator Ben Sasse. The brainy young conservative was among the earliest, loudest, and proudest Never Trumpers on the Hill. It was a principled move, but one that could make the next few years decidedly unpleasant if Trump and his people hold a grudge.

Senator Ted Cruz. The mind reels to think of Cruz’s suicidal, Trump-antagonizing speech at the Republican nominating convention this summer, followed shortly by his flip-flop endorsement of Trump and subsequent half-hearted stumping for him. The end result: Cruz wound up looking like both a jerk and a coward. And after all that, Trump won, meaning that Cruz isn’t in a position to restart his presidential motor again for at least years.

Senator Mitch McConnell. For all of 2016, McConnell stuck to a drag-your-feet-and-don’t-take-any-unnecessary-votes approach to legislating--or, more accurately, not legislating. Most controversial was his refusal to even pretend to consider filling the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Antonin Scalia in February. For months, critics predicted McConnell & Co. would pay a political price for such blatant obstructionism. Democrats worked to fire up their voters over the issue. But post-election, the Majority Leader’s strategy looks like sinister genius. The GOP is gearing up not only to install a conservative replacement for Scalia but to erase as many signs of the Obama era as possible. Yet again, The Turtle has proved a master of the game.

Representative Nancy Pelosi. The Democratic leader has long had a reputation among her conference as a wee bit imperious and controlling and not always open to divergent points of view. For some, this latest election fail was simply the last straw. Pelosi beat back a challenge to her leadership but in the process had to accept reforms that give younger members a louder voice (including creating vice-ranking positions on each committee) and slightly loosen her grip on the caucus overall. (The heads of the campaign committee and the messaging committee will be elected by the caucus rather than appointed by leadership.) Even so, the rank-and-file are restless, and there is grumbling that, after this term, Pelosi really needs to step aside. That said, there’s a dearth of obvious successors. (With Steve Israel, Chris Van Hollen, and Xavier Becerra all leaving the House, Joe Crowley is the remaining name most often floated.) If the queen does not appear inclined to relinquish the crown, it is not clear who is in a position to depose her—which could make the troops even twitchier.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Oof. It was ugly enough when DWS, in her capacity as head of the DNC, blew herself up in her overeagerness to deliver Hillary the nomination. (Count her among the casualties of Wikileaks’ electoral meddling.) But to then have Hillary lose? Now, not only are Bernie Sanders’ fans miffed at DWS, she can’t turn to a grateful President Hillary to help restore her brand. Even Democrats who like DSW say she’s too toxic for any sort of leadership role in the foreseeable future. Her travails, followed closely by Donna Brazile’s heartburn atop the DNC, makes one wonder if the committee chairmanship is worth all the effort.

Representative Keith Ellison. Speaking of leading the DNC, the Minnesota congressman wants the job bad—so bad he has offered to resign his seat to devote himself to the committee full time. This puts Dems in a tricky spot. The need for a full-time chairman has been the primary objection voiced by those who don’t support Ellison’s bid, but it is not the only issue. An African-American Muslim from the party’s progressive wing, Ellison stands as a rebuke to the racial and religious demagoguery of Trumpism. At the same time, plenty of Dems fear he’d focus the party too much on identity politics or that he simply isn’t the right guy to win back all those white, working-class, Rust-Belt voters who abandoned the party this election. Touchier still, Ellison is under fire for making remarks critical of Israel and for having long-ago played footsie with the anti-semitic Louis Farrakhan. (The ADL is not amused.) Still, win or lose the DNC job, Ellison intends to make himself heard in the Age of Trump.

Senator Tom Cotton. When it was assumed that Trump would lose, Cotton set his sights on 2020. Tongues wagged as he gallivanted around the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. The Arkansas conservative will need to table those big ambitions for now. But Cotton is young—and, unlike, say, Ted Cruz, he managed not to humiliate himself this cycle.

Speaker Paul Ryan. Why even bother going down this rabbit hole? Perhaps never has the relationship between a new president and a House speaker been so tortured, so twisted, so ripe for conflict and abuse. And these guys are on the same team! Ryan is exactly the kind of snotty know-it-all Trump has always felt was looking down his nose at him—which, yeah, Ryan probably is most of the time. The $64,000 question is which issue will goad the men into Thunderdome mode—tariffs? infrastructure spending? Medicare!?—and what pithy new nicknames President Trump will dream up for the speaker.

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After a year of uncertainty and unhappiness, the president is reportedly feeling more comfortable—but has he really mastered the job?

It was a fun weekend for Donald Trump. Late on Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe, the outgoing FBI deputy director whom Trump had long targeted, and the president spent the rest of the weekend taking victory laps: cheering McCabe’s departure, taking shots at his former boss and mentor James Comey, and renewing his barrage against Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump’s moods shift quickly, but over the last week or so, a different overarching feel has manifested itself, a meta-mood. Although he remains irritated by Mueller and any number of other things, Trump seems to be relishing the latest sound of chaos, “leaning into the maelstrom,” as McKay Coppins put it Friday. This is rooted, Maggie Haberman reports, in a growing confidence on the president’s part: “A dozen people close to Mr. Trump or the White House, including current and former aides and longtime friends, described him as newly emboldened to say what he really feels and to ignore the cautions of those around him.”

How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory

One of the most extraordinary things about our current politics—really, one of the most extraordinary developments of recent political history—is the loyal adherence of religious conservatives to Donald Trump. The president won four-fifths of the votes of white evangelical Christians. This was a higher level of support than either Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, an outspoken evangelical himself, ever received.

Trump’s background and beliefs could hardly be more incompatible with traditional Christian models of life and leadership. Trump’s past political stances (he once supported the right to partial-birth abortion), his character (he has bragged about sexually assaulting women), and even his language (he introduced the words pussy and shithole into presidential discourse) would more naturally lead religious conservatives toward exorcism than alliance. This is a man who has cruelly publicized his infidelities, made disturbing sexual comments about his elder daughter, and boasted about the size of his penis on the debate stage. His lawyer reportedly arranged a $130,000 payment to a porn star to dissuade her from disclosing an alleged affair. Yet religious conservatives who once blanched at PG-13 public standards now yawn at such NC-17 maneuvers. We are a long way from The Book of Virtues.

Invented centuries ago in France, the bidet has never taken off in the States. That might be changing.

“It’s been completely Americanized!” my host declares proudly. “The bidet is gone!” In my time as a travel editor, this scenario has become common when touring improvements to hotels and resorts around the world. My heart sinks when I hear it. To me, this doesn’t feel like progress, but prejudice.

Americans seem especially baffled by these basins. Even seasoned American travelers are unsure of their purpose: One globe-trotter asked me, “Why do the bathrooms in this hotel have both toilets and urinals?” And even if they understand the bidet’s function, Americans often fail to see its appeal. Attempts to popularize the bidet in the United States have failed before, but recent efforts continue—and perhaps they might even succeed in bringing this Old World device to new backsides.

A new six-part Netflix documentary is a stunning dive into a utopian religious community in Oregon that descended into darkness.

To describe Wild Wild Country as jaw-dropping is to understate the number of times my mouth gaped while watching the series, a six-part Netflix documentary about a religious community in Oregon in the 1980s. It’s ostensibly the story of how a group led by the dynamic Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh purchased 64,000 acres of land in central Oregon in a bid to build its own utopian city. But, as the series immediately reveals, the narrative becomes darker and stranger than you might ever imagine. It’s a tale that mines the weirdness of the counterculture in the ’70s and ’80s, the age-old conflict between rural Americans and free love–preaching cityfolk, and the emotional vacuum that compels people to interpret a bearded mystic as something akin to a god.

The first female speaker of the House has become the most effec­tive congressional leader of modern times—and, not coinciden­tally, the most vilified.

Last May, TheWashington Post’s James Hohmann noted “an uncovered dynamic” that helped explain the GOP’s failure to repeal Obamacare. Three current Democratic House members had opposed the Affordable Care Act when it first passed. Twelve Democratic House members represent districts that Donald Trump won. Yet none voted for repeal. The “uncovered dynamic,” Hohmann suggested, was Nancy Pelosi’s skill at keeping her party in line.

She’s been keeping it in line for more than a decade. In 2005, George W. Bush launched his second presidential term with an aggressive push to partially privatize Social Security. For nine months, Republicans demanded that Democrats admit the retirement system was in crisis and offer their own program to change it. Pelosi refused. Democratic members of Congress hosted more than 1,000 town-hall meetings to rally opposition to privatization. That fall, Republicans backed down, and Bush’s second term never recovered.

Among the more practical advice that can be offered to international travelers is wisdom of the bathroom. So let me say, as someone who recently returned from China, that you should be prepared to one, carry your own toilet paper and two, practice your squat.

I do not mean those goofy chairless sits you see at the gym. No, toned glutes will not save you here. I mean the deep squat, where you plop your butt down as far as it can go while staying aloft and balanced on the heels. This position—in contrast to deep squatting on your toes as most Americans naturally attempt instead—is so stable that people in China can hold it for minutes and perhaps even hours ...

As the Trump presidency approaches a troubling tipping point, it’s time to find the right term for what’s happening to democracy.

Here is something that, even on its own, is astonishing: The president of the United States demanded the firing of the former FBI deputy director, a career civil servant, after tormenting him both publicly and privately—and it worked.

The American public still doesn’t know in any detail what Andrew McCabe, who was dismissed late Friday night, is supposed to have done. But citizens can see exactly what Donald Trump did to McCabe. And the president’s actions are corroding the independence that a healthy constitutional democracy needs in its law enforcement and intelligence apparatus.

McCabe’s firing is part of a pattern. It follows the summary removal of the previous FBI director and comes amid Trump’s repeated threats to fire the attorney general, the deputy attorney, and the special counsel who is investigating him and his associates. McCabe’s ouster unfolded against a chaotic political backdrop that includes Trump’s repeated calls for investigations of his political opponents, demands of loyalty from senior law-enforcement officials, and declarations that the job of those officials is to protect him from investigation.

Middle-class African American families aren’t spending as much on groceries as white families, and the reason isn’t a lack of money, but a lack of options.

Rich Americans spend their money differently than poor Americans—no great surprise there. But the differences in how families spend go beyond earnings. For instance, rich white families spend more on entertainment and groceries than rich black families. And black families at all income levels spend more on things that require a long-term contract, such as electricity and heating services, than white families at corresponding income levels.

These discrepancies illustrate an under-recognized aspect of racial inequality: Blacks don’t just tend to earn less than whites. Even when they earn as much, they seem to still have less access to goods and services than their white peers do.

That’s the finding of a paper by the sociologists Raphaël Charron-Chénier, Joshua J. Fink, and Lisa A. Keister of Duke University, who used data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey to assess the spending habits of white and black households in 2013 and 2014. They argue that access to credit, retail deserts, and discrimination could be major factors in why blacks spend less, in aggregate, than whites. Only one of these challenges—access to credit—is mitigated when black families earn more money.

For years, the restaurateur played a jerk with a heart of gold. Now, he’s the latest celebrity chef to be accused of sexual harassment.

“There’s no way—no offense—but a girl shouldn’t be at the same level that I am.”

That was Mike Isabella, celebrity chef and successful restaurateur, making his debut on the show that would make him famous. Bravo’s Top Chef, to kick off its Las Vegas–set Season 6, had pitted its new group of contestants against each other in a mise-en-place relay race; Isabella, shucking clams, had looked over and realized to his great indignation that Jen Carroll, a sous chef at New York’s iconic Le Bernardin, was doing the work more quickly than he was.

Top Chef is a simmering stew of a show—one that blends the pragmatic testing of culinary artistry with reality-TV sugar and reality-TV spice—and Isabella quickly established himself as Season 6’s pseudo-villain: swaggering, macho, quick to anger, and extremely happy to insult his fellow contestants, including Carroll and, soon thereafter, Robin Leventhal (a self-taught chef and cancer survivor). Isabella was a villain, however, who was also, occasionally, self-effacing. A little bit bumbling. Aw, shucks, quite literally. He would later explain, of the “same level” comment: